The reintroduction of Mountain gazelle Gazella gazella in Saudi Arabia

Utility of island populations in re‐introduction programmes – relationships betweenArabian gazelles (Gazella arabica) from theFarasanArchipelago and endangered mainland populations

“…) – which so far mostly rely on mainland animals (Dunham et al . ; Kichenside ) – to maintain a maximum of genetic diversity, which is of increasing importance given the high degree of inbreeding observable in most of the remaining natural populations. Beforehand, future breeding experiments with Farasan and mainland gazelles should be performed to rule out possible local adaptation to insular life – however unlikely such a scenario may seem – and to evaluate the ability of hybrid offspring to survive under mainland conditions.…”

“…To protect the threatened antelope fauna of Saudi Arabia, conservation measures were established, including captive breeding and re‐introduction (Dunham et al . ; Kichenside ). Unfortunately, those conservation actions were hampered by taxonomic uncertainties – especially in the case of Arabian gazelles ( G. arabica ) – that created confusion about the management status ( sensu Vogler & DeSalle ) of several phenotypically discernible populations (Lerp et al .…”

Dispersal pattern of mountain gazelles Gazella gazella released in central Arabia

“…Previous reports have described the preparations for this reintroduction; mortality, reproduction, and changes in population number after the releases; the size and spatial distribution of the gazelles' annual ranges; their social organization; and their use of artificial water supplies (Dunham et al, 1993;Dunham, 1997aDunham, , 1998aDunham, ,b, 1999. Post-release dispersal is defined as the movement of gazelles from their release site to an area where they reproduced, either by holding a territory (males), or by giving birth to a calf that was conceived after its mother was released (females).…”

Role of veterinarians in re‐introductions

“…There are well‐known success stories; for example, mammals: Oryx Oryx leucoryx (Stanley, 1989), Gazelles Gazella sp (Dunham et al , 1993; Haque & Smith, 1996; Wacher & Kitchenside, 1998), Przewalski's wild horse Equus przewalski (Van Dierendonck & Wallis de Vries, 1996), Pere David's deer Elaphurus davidianus (Kock & Woodford, 1988) and Golden lion tamarin Leontopithicus rosalia (Kleiman & Rylands, 2002); birds: Californian condor Gymnogyps californianus (Toone & Wallace, 1994), Whooping crane Grus americana (Archibald, 2000) and Red kite Milvus milvus (Carter, 2001); reptiles: Galapagos land iguana Conolophis subcristatus and Galapagos tortoise Geochelone elephantophus (Cayot et al , 1994); amphibians: Great crested newt Triturus cristatus and Common newt Triturus vulgaris (Kinne, 2006); and insects: Karner blue butterfly Lycaeides melissa samuelis (Martin & Brown, 1995), but these are the exceptions (Beck et al , 1994). In 1998, the Re‐introduction Specialist Group (RSG) of the IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC) published a directory of people willing to be listed as engaged in re‐introduction projects with species and other contact details of their projects (Soorae & Seddon, 1998).…”